Achieving browser autocomplete

2012-06-07 2 min read
    Screenshot of date range tool in action

    Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about habits. How do they form? How do they change? And the selfish one - how can you build a product that is habit forming? My cofunder sent me a great Nir & Far blog post that goes into detail about generating desire which is a great read to anyone building a consumer product.

    Along these lines, I decided to be a bit introspective and see which products and sites are a part of my habit. A simple way was to type each letter of the alphabet into the Google Chrome address bar and see what site autocompletes. Here goes:

    • analytics.google.com
    • bankofamerica.com
    • cad-comic.com/cad
    • docs.google.com
    • eventbrite.com
    • facebook.com
    • glos.si
    • heroku.com
    • instapaper.com
    • joinblended.com
    • klout.com
    • linkedin.com
    • maps.google.com
    • news.ycombinator.com
    • optimum.com
    • plus.google.com
    • questionablecontent.net
    • reader.google.com
    • startupmullings.com
    • twitter.com
    • udacity.com
    • voice.google.com
    • wixlounge.com
    • xkcd.com
    • youtube.com
    • zerply.com

    After excluding my sites (glos.si and startupmullings.com), we can organize them into the following categories:

    • Entertainment (the comic sites - xkcd, QC, CAD; Youtube; Google Reader)
    • Social Networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Twitter)
    • Utilities (Google analytics/docs/voice, Bank of America, Instapaper, Eventbrite, Optimum, Heroku)
    • The rare letters (Zerply, Udacity, Wix Lounge). I’d like to include Klout on this list rather than admit to browsing it but I don’t know if that will be believable.

    Every consumer site should strive to get to browser autocomplete status for some users rather than being semi-popular to more users. Being useful to a few passionate users and growing with their help is a much better approach than trying to immediately appeal to the mass market.

    And although this exercise may be embarrassing, I’d love to see what others have as their 26 sites.